Miraculous: Bas Jan Ader Remembered

On 9 July 1975, in what would become his final, unfinished work, the hugely influential Dutch performance, film and conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader set sail from Massachusetts in a 12 foot dinghy called Ocean Wave. He planned to cross the Atlantic to Falmouth. He was never seen again.

The work was called In Search of the Miraculous (after Ouspensky’s seminal work of esoteric philosophy) and was in three parts. In the first, on the evening before his departure, a student choir sang sea shanties in the gallery of his Los Angeles dealer. The voyage was the central undertaking. He was to be received by a shanty choir in Falmouth.

Forty years to the day since Ader embarked, this event sings him to shore and celebrates his all too short life and extraordinary work with readings from Ouspensky, live music from the London Trad Academy Sea Shanty Choir and a rare 16mm screening of six of his films: Fall I; Fall II; I’m Too Sad to Tell You; Broken Fall (Geometric); Broken Fall (Organic) and Nightfall.

The Estate of Bas Jan Ader is represented by Meliksetian I Briggs.